from Busman's Honeymoon, chapter VI, Back to the Army Again (Dorothy L. Sayers)

'Do,' said Harriet. 'I'll come in a moment.'

She let them go and turned to Peter, who stood motionless, staring down at the table. Oh, my God! she thought, startled by his face, he's a middle-aged man — the half of life gone — he mustn't —

'Peter, my poor dear! And we came here for a quiet honeymoon!'

He turned at her touch and laughed ruefully.

'Damn!' he said. 'And damn! Back to the old grind. Rigor mortis and who-saw-him-last, blood-prints, finger-prints, footprints, information received and it-is-my-dooty-to-warn-you. Quelle scie, mon dieu, quelle scie!'

A young man in a blue uniform put his head in at the door.

'Now then,' said Police-constable Sellon, 'wot's all this?'

from Der Rosenkavalier, Act Three (Hugo von Hofmannsthal)

Marschallin:

Hab' mir's gelobt, ihn lieb zu haben in der richtigen Weis',
daß ich selbst sein Lieb' zu einer andern
noch lieb hab! Hab' mir freilich nicht gedacht,
daß es so bald mir auferlegt sollt' werden!

(seufzend)

Es sind die mehreren Dinge auf der Welt,
so daß sie ein's nicht glauben tät',
wenn man sie möcht' erzählen hör'n.
Alleinig wer's erlebt, der glaubt daran und weiß nicht wie -
Da steht der Bub' und da steh' ich, und mit dem fremden Mädel dort
wird er so glücklich sein, als wie halt Männer
das Glücklichsein versteh'n.

(I chose to love him in the right way,
so that I would love even his love for another!
I truly didn't believe
that I would have to bear it so soon!

(sighing)

Most things in this world
are unbelievable
when you hear about them.
But when they happen to you, you believe them, and don't know why -
There stands the boy and here I stand, and with that strange girl
he will be as happy as any man
knows how to be.)

List of Illustrations from The Great Book of True Stories (London 1936)

IN BOUNDED THE LIONS by Dudley Cowes Frontispiece

AFTER AN INTIMATE MINUTE WITH HIM I GOT THE DAGGER by H. G. Fairbairn 23

ON THE FILTHY FLOOR OF THE CAVE SAT HALF A DOZEN ENORMOUS RATS by Clark Fay 41

THERE HE STOOD SILENT AND SOLITARY by Norman Keen 73

THE BARREL MOVED OVER THEM, PRESENTING ITS BLACK THREATFUL MOUTH by R. Cleaver 101

MY FATHER WAS SWINGING CRAZILY IN MID-AIR by E. B. Thurstan 133

I SAW THE STREET SPLIT OPEN by J. Nicolle 207

I HEARD THE WILD CRIES AND SAW THEIR DARK GLEAMING BODIES by Jack Faulkes 245

THE SIAMESE WAS IN THE TOILS OF A QUICKSAND by T. Grainger Jeffrey 289

HE WAS FIVE YARDS AWAY by S. Tresilian 313

THE ABLE SEAMAN MADE A FLYING LEAP by Norman Hepple 331

HE STAGGERED OUT OF THE KNEE-DEEP SAND WITH HIS FIND by Edward Osmond 369

WE JAMMED ON OUR BRAKES IN HORROR by Clive Uptton 387

HE GLARED AT ME WITH BLOODSHOT EYES by Alfred Sindall 493

THE PRESSURE OF THE GUN WAS NOTICEABLY STRONGER by J. Greenup 539

IT IS EASY TO IMAGINE HOW UNPLEASANT THE TUNNEL WAS by Norman Howard 565

HER HAND CLUTCHED AT MINE by Cyril Holloway 661

from Winter Holiday, chapter XI, Cragfast Sheep (Arthur Ransome)

He remembered then that, after the sheep was lowered, one of the others would have to go all the way back and down into the gully to untie it before they could let him have the rope for the return journey. All that time he would have to sit on the ledge there, with his back against the face of the rock, and wait, and wait, and not look down at his feet. Well, those buzzards were still there.

And then, suddenly, he was startled by a shout from Roger, out of sight above him.

'Here come the dogs!'

And away to the left, far below him, he saw the sledge party coming up the gully, and knew that they had seen him.

John would be there to undo the sheep. It was too late now to try again, but he did wish he had been able to manage a rather more seamanlike knot.

from The Invention of Love, Act Two (Tom Stoppard)

Housman (watching the runners) What do I want?

Chamberlain Nothing which you'd call indecent, though I don't see what's wrong with it myself. You want to be brothers-in-arms, to have him to yourself ... to be shipwrecked together, (to) perform valiant deeds to earn his admiration, to save him from certain death, to die for him - to die in his arms, like a Spartan, kissed once on the lips ... or just run his errands in the meanwhile. You want him to know what cannot be spoken, and to make the perfect reply, in the same language. (Pause. Still without inflection) He's going to win it. (Finally he warms into excitement as the race passes in front of them.) By God, he is! Come on, Jackson! Up the Patent Office! ... He's won it!

Machines (Michael Donaghy)

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsichord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsichordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.

from Brideshead Revisited, chapter IV (Evelyn Waugh)

'But my dear Sebastian, you can't seriously believe it all.'

'Can't I?'

'I mean about Christmas and the star and the three kings and the ox and the ass.'

'Oh yes, I believe that. It's a lovely idea.'

'But you can't believe things because they're a lovely idea.'

'But I do. That's how I believe.'

Lesbia in Orco (David Vessey)

Reading Catullus on the Northern Line
in Fordyce's edition (which omits the obscene),
I wondered if Lesbia would have got out at Hampstead
or come on with me to Golders Green.

Somehow I don't picture her
on the platform at Bank,
jostled in a smoking carriage
by a man who stank

of 'The Daily Telegraph' and Players plain.
Perhaps I am wrong
there may be somewhere a Lesbia
worthy of song

from Gaius Valerius Catullus, who
counts her kisses like stars in the sky:
but for some reason
she escapes my eye

as I read his carmina on the Underground.
She must be as rare
as the nymph who picked up Peleus
near Weston-super-Mare

as he sailed in the Argo on a virgin sea.
(But isn't that Attis in a shiny suit
asking a dame to dance with him
to the sound of dinning cymbal and of shrilling flute?)

Who? Lesbia? I know her: she went to Leicester Square
and hurried through to Soho in the evening rain,
where she helps the sons of Romulus
drink Japanese champagne.

The Oracles (A.E. Housman)

'Tis mute, the word they went to hear on high Dodona mountain
When winds were in the oakenshaws and all the cauldrons tolled,
And mute's the midland navel-stone beside the singing fountain,
And echoes list to silence now where gods told lies of old.

I took my question to the shrine that has not ceased from speaking,
The heart within, that tells the truth and tells it twice as plain;
And from the cave of oracles I heard the priestess shrieking
That she and I should surely die and never live again.

Oh priestess, what you cry is clear, and sound good sense I think it;
But let the screaming echoes rest, and froth your mouth no more.
'Tis true there's better boose than brine, but he that drowns must drink it;
And oh, my lass, the news is news that men have heard before.

The King with half the East at heel is marched from lands of morning;
Their fighters drink the rivers up, their shafts benight the air,
And he that stands will die for nought, and home there's no returning.
The Spartans on the sea-wet rock sat down and combed their hair.

O Captain! My Captain! (Walt Whitman)

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths — for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck
You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.